Alexandra Kravchenko, Michigan State University professor in the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, and several of her colleagues recently discovered a new mechanism determining how carbon is stored in soils that could improve the climate resilience of cropping systems and also reduce their carbon footprints.
Alexandra Kravchenko, Michigan State University professor in the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, and several of her colleagues recently discovered a new mechanism determining how carbon is stored in soils that could improve the climate resilience of cropping systems and also reduce their carbon footprints.
The findings, published last week in the scientific journal Nature Communications, reveal the importance of soil pore structure for stimulating soil carbon accumulation and protection.
“Understanding how carbon is stored in soils is important for thinking about solutions for climate change,” said Phil Robertson, University Distinguished Professor of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, and a co-author of the study. “It’s also pretty important for ways to think about soil fertility and therefore, crop production.”
The study was conducted through the MSU Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Kellogg Biological Station Long-term Ecological Research program funded by the National Science Foundation, or NSF, and it was supported by NSF's Division of Earth Sciences.
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Image: Alexandra Kravchenko is a Michigan State University professor in the Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. (Credit: Michigan State University)
